.....or even a live partial-birth abortion

I AM the satan action figure.....

How much would YOU pay to see an execution on TV. Hmmmmm.Depends.Is it a runofthemill murderer ... or a major wacko a la John Wayne Casey ... or a major cause-celeb murderer? Also, what form of execution? Lethal injection? booooring!Anyway, if I were pay-per-view, I'd put the average execution at about $5.50 and I'd put the famous serial murderers or celebraty murderers out at $29.50.I'd have to price the Mumia electric-chair extravaganza at $49.00 -- but with a promise to give 50% of all profits to the widows and orphans of murdered cops. The real money is in merchandising anayway. There'd be the Mumia action figure with electric-chair accessory; the sourpuss incessant whiney enabling leftist action figure (which I'd model after our good friend Franklin) -- pull his string and he whines "Free Mumia"; the executioner action figure with kung-fu grip -- just press his belly and he throws "the switch" ... and a big ol' Satan action figure with pitchfork waiting to drag Mumia straight to hell.

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." George Santanaya

Get Involved!Ralph Nader needs your help to kick-off this campaign! The 1st priority is to get Ralph on the ballot in all 50 states. This is a volunteer-powered effort so please sign-up to help in your state. Here are a few things you can do right now to help: Register to vote, sign up to collect signatures, donate and much more...: http://www.votenader.com/get_involved/index.php Nader for President 2004 P.O. Box 18002, Washington, DC 20036 - info@votenader.org

Thank you for sticking it to those rep!g bastards!

Thank you for that caveat!

Read literally, the Buchanan piece makes some good points. But consider the source.Just as Reagan used "welfare queens" as a code word for blacks, when Buchanan talks about "neocons," it's a code word for Jews.Just as he did in the Gulf War, Buchanan is blaming Jews ("The neoconservatives -- Wolfowitz, Perle & Co.") for this war, and presumably the current suffering of the Iraqi people. Reminds me of OBL, except that Buchanan left out the religious right (i.e. "crusaders").

Here's something interesting... from that flaming liberal, Marxist hard-liner, A.N.S.W.E.R.-loving Pat BuchananMiami HeraldFebruary 10, 2004Bush Doctrine, Not Evidence Of Weapons, Led To War By Patrick J. Buchanan Most Americans yet believe President Bush did the right thing in ridding Iraq and the world of Saddam Hussein. Yet, how we were persuaded to go to war raises grave questions about the character and competence of those who led us into it.As we now know, Iraq had no tie to Osama, no role in 9-11, no nuclear program, no weapons of mass destruction, no plans to attack us. Its people did not threaten us and did not want war with us.By what right, then, did we invade their country, destroy their army and inflict thousands of casualties upon their people?Comes the answer: We acted under the Bush Doctrine, under which we will not permit the world's worst dictators to acquire the world's worst weapons. To eliminate such threats before they go critical, we reserve the right to take preemptive military action and to wage preventive wars.We cannot wait for tumors to become malignant before cutting them out, Bush was saying. After 9-11, most of America agreed.Why Iraq?But why did Bush choose Iraq? Why not Iran, whose hand in terror attacks was more demonstrable and whose missile and nuclear programs were more advanced?Why not North Korea?The neoconservatives -- Wolfowitz, Perle & Co. -- we know, had been plotting war on Iraq and propagandizing for a U.S. invasion for years. But why did Bush sign on? Why did he make Iraq the first target of his doctrine? There was no tie between Saddam and 9-11, and Iraq seemed neither a grave nor an imminent threat.What appears to have happened is this: Sometime soon after 9-11, the neocons persuaded the president that invading Iraq was the next crucial step in winning the war on terror and evil in which Divine Providence had chosen him to be the Churchill of his generation. And if the country and Congress were unconvinced of the need for war, it was his job to convince them.And here is where the administration began to cross the line. To persuade us that Saddam was a mortal threat to which the only recourse was war, they needed evidence. But, apparently, there was little or no hard evidence to be had. No smoking guns. Saddam had been corralled in his box for a dozen years. America had flown 40,000 sorties over his country without losing a plane.The only case that could be made was by extrapolating from the weapons Iraq had had before the Gulf War, which the U.N. inspectors had failed to find before they left in 1998.Again, what seems to have happened is this:Frustrated hawks in the Pentagon, impatient with the CIA's inability to find the evidence to clinch the case for a war they had already decided on, began demanding access to raw intelligence.They set up their own intelligence unit in the Pentagon, the Office of Special Plans. They solicited foreign intelligence agencies and Iraqi exiles to discover evidence that Saddam not only had stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons, he was working on nuclear ones.First, they decided on war. Then they sent everyone out on a global scavenger hunt to find the evidence to prove we had no alternative but war.And though the information that came back was suspicious and the sources suspect, at least it pointed, as desired, in the right direction.And, so, the hawks fed it to their propagandists in the press and ''stovepiped'' it to the White House, where it soon began to appear in the statements and speeches of the president and his War Cabinet.Thus, we were told an Iraqi intelligence agent in Prague had met with Muhammad Atta before 9-11, that Saddam was buying raw uranium for atomic bombs in Africa, that Iraq was testing drones and fitting them with biological weapons.Vice President Cheney told ''Meet the Press'' that Saddam ''has been absolutely devoted to trying to acquire nuclear weapons. And we believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons.'' Condi Rice warned us that if we waited too long for proof it might come in a ''mushroom cloud'' over an American city.Upon such ''evidence,'' the White House stampeded Congress and the country into war, a war we now know was utterly unnecessary. We were misled, and the only question that lingers is: Were we deceived?

Clark Papers Talk Politics And War General Cites Pressure From Clinton Aides Over Kosovo Conflict By R. Jeffrey SmithWashington Post Staff WriterSaturday, February 7, 2004; Page A01 Some top Clinton administration officials wanted to end the Kosovo war abruptly in the summer of 1999, at almost any cost, because the presidential campaign of then-Vice President Al Gore was about to begin, former NATO commander Gen. Wesley K. Clark says in his official papers."There were those in the White House who said, 'Hey, look, you gotta finish the bombing before the Fourth of July weekend. That's the start of the next presidential campaign season, so stop it. It doesn't matter what you do, just turn it off. You don't have to win this thing, let it lie,' " Clark said in a January 2000 interview with NATO's official historian, four months before leaving the post of supreme allied commander Europe.In his campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination, Clark has repeatedly made his conduct of the war a central theme, arguing that his leadership skills and experience in building coalitions with allies make him better suited for the White House than President Bush. He made the papers from his 34-month tenure as NATO's top military officer available in response to a request by The Washington Post.The papers document that throughout the war, Clark was frequently at odds with top officials in the Clinton administration, including senior officers in the Pentagon, and that he was deeply skeptical that Washington was making good policy. "I know this region a whole lot better than a lot of these guys back in Washington do," Clark said in one private interview.In describing White House pressure to end the war for political reasons, Clark did not name the officials involved or state how he knew about it. He described the pressures while detailing for the historical record the conflict's frenetic final months, when many in Washington openly worried it was dragging on too long and Clark was among a few officials urging escalating NATO's role in the war.But on June 10, 1999, Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic -- under pressure from NATO's bombardment and Russia's withdrawal of political support -- capitulated to the West's demands for the pullout of all Serbian forces and the deployment of Western peacekeepers in Kosovo, a major and continuing NATO engagement.That was the day Clark had privately identified as his deadline for formally recommending an escalation of the bombing campaign instead of launching a ground war involving tens of thousands of troops -- a plan he knew would give Washington pause, according to the papers. "Whether they would have fired me or not, I don't know, but it would have been pretty nasty," he told the NATO historian, according to an interview transcript in the National Defense University's special collections library in Washington.No attempt by Clinton administration officials to manipulate the timing of the war's end was reported at the time. But this week, Clark confirmed through Jamie P. Rubin, a Clark campaign adviser who was a spokesman for then-Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright, that he stands by his account of the pressures.Rubin added that Clark, who was campaigning in Tennessee, could not immediately recall further details of the episode.Asked about Clark's account, Samuel R. "Sandy" Berger, the national security adviser to President Bill Clinton at the time, called Clark a friend but said any implication that the White House was prepared to hurry the end of the war for political reasons was "categorically and completely false.""The White House was totally committed to victory in Kosovo, no matter how long it took or what it took," he said.A former senior administration official, however, said Clark might have been referring to a Washington meeting of top policymakers in late spring at which Gore allegedly expressed concern that the war might interfere with his campaign. Gore formally announced his candidacy one week after the war ended, on June 16, 1999.Gore, through a spokesman, declined to comment directly. Leon Feurth, his national security adviser at the time, said that politics were not discussed at White House national security meetings, and that while Gore opposed preparing for a ground war, he supported continuing the bombing as long as necessary to win. Gore "was prepared to take a political hit" on such issues, Feurth said. In his papers, Clark made clear that he frequently urged a harder line than Washington and its allies preferred, accusing the Defense Department at one point of urging "a sellout" in 1998 negotiations over a plan to begin international monitoring of Serbian activities in Kosovo. Berger, Clark said, believed at the time that the risks posed by those actions were "not real" and favored a weak solution."That's the flavor of it. 'It's not like this is a really serious problem.' It's like, 'Hey, let's jerk this guy's [Milosevic's] chain.' [Then,] 'Okay, we can't stand [it] anymore, it's too embarrassing politically,' " Clark said, adding: "I don't take it that way. I take it as a very serious threat to European security.""All along, I always had a terrible feeling about Milosevic, that we were really sort of making a compromise with Hitler in 1943," Clark said. He expressed particular regret that both Washington and Europe had failed to intervene against Yugoslavia in the summer of 1998, when, he said, Milosevic had timed a campaign of ethnic cleansing to coincide with Western officials' summer vacations.Berger disputed Clark's account of his views, calling it "garbled hearsay that is just incorrect," because "I was a strong advocate of action on Kosovo."Clark told the historian that he chafed during the war at having to submit individual bombing targets to the White House and the French government for approval. He said Clinton reviewed them directly, apparently because of embarrassment over the U.S. military's 1998 bombing of a pharmaceutical plant in Sudan. He also quoted a deputy French defense minister as acknowledging that Paris rejected some of his target choices simply for the sake of "saying no."Clark said his reaction was to ask for approval to bomb "more than you expect" to get. He was scathing in his papers, as he was in a book he wrote in 2001 about the Pentagon's refusal toward the end of the war to endorse his use of Apache helicopters to attack Serbian ground forces. "The Army didn't want to be involved because they were afraid of being embarrassed or afraid of taking risks or whatever," Clark said. "The Navy didn't have a dog in the fight but [wasn't] too interested. And the Air Force, well, they would support me, but then they sent their henchmen down to make sure the [Apaches] would never fly."Clark denigrated criticism of his plan as "all hype and [expletive]" and told the historian that even Clinton was unwilling to listen to his advice. During the president's visit to Brussels on May 5, 1999, "he's sitting next to me, and he says, 'Well, I guess the Apaches are too high-risk to use.' I said, 'No, Mr. President, they aren't.' Boy, he didn't want to hear that! He turned his head away . . . and that was the end of the discussion." In early June 1999, after negotiations had finally begun to end the war, Clark told then-U.S. Ambassador to NATO Sandy Vershbow that "the Pentagon is pushing for any way out, pushing for a softer line, get us out, save money," according to a transcript of the telephone conversation in his papers."I think there was a lot of animus at the time," Clark later told the historian. "People knew I was fighting this thing [an early draft of the cease-fire agreement] . . . as it was being dragged to the conclusion, because I felt we were giving too much away. And what was coming from Washington was, get an agreement at any price."The papers also shed new light on Clark's role in a notorious incident of rekindled East-West tensions immediately after a cease-fire agreement was reached with Yugoslavia. The episode involved a small contingent of Russian peacekeeping troops stationed in Bosnia outracing NATO forces in Macedonia to gain control over the main airport in Pristina.Clark told aides at the time that he was worried the Russians would leverage their control to block NATO's deployment or demand a de facto partition of Kosovo. He also was concerned -- according to a transcript of his conversations during the crisis -- that the professed ignorance of Russian political officials about the move possibly meant that "we're dealing with a military takeover of the government in Russia."He told NATO Secretary General Javier Solana that "Washington used the word 'coup' to me," but he made clear he could not confirm it.Urged by senior U.S. officials to respond forcefully, Clark ordered British Gen. Mike Jackson, then under his command, to land British helicopters and station armored personnel carriers at the airport to block the Russians. The British general refused, saying he had no desire to start World War III.Clark told the historian he was unperturbed by the unlikely prospect of a direct clash once the British forces pushed the Russian vehicles with their own. "Yes, they could shoot. When they shoot, we're gonna shoot. And guess what, there's a lot more of us than there are of them," Clark said, recounting his feelings at the time. "So my guess is, they're not gonna shoot!"There was no coup, of course. And Jackson, with Clark's backing, defused the crisis by offering "to kill [the Russians] with niceness, welcome them aboard." The West forced Moscow to share the airport by prevailing on the Romanian and Bulgarian governments to block any air reinforcement or resupply of the Russian troops.Clark's papers include a warm letter from William S. Cohen, the secretary of defense at the time, praising the general for his efforts during the crisis. But Cohen, who resented Clark's independent attitudes, forced him out of the job months before Clark intended to leave.

Could this be the beginning of:"It's the Economy Stupid-Part II, Son of Stupid" Bush Says U.S. Economy in 'Lasting Expansion'WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush, in the midst of an election-year push to bolster sagging poll numbers, said on Saturday the U.S. economy had entered a period of enduring growth. "Our economic recovery is becoming a lasting expansion," Bush said in his prerecorded weekly radio address. He cited recent economic statistics including a rebound in job growth after more than two years of losses, a rise in manufacturing orders and a 6.1 percent U.S. economic growth rate in the second half of 2003. Nevertheless, his remarks followed a jobs-growth report Friday that analysts viewed as disappointingly weak. The report said the U.S. economy had created 112,000 new jobs in January, fewer than expected and well below the 150,000 monthly new-jobs rate economists deem necessary to keep up with growth in the labor force. The January figure came on the heels of a weak December, when 16,000 jobs were added, according to revised figures. In all, 2.2 million jobs have been lost since Bush took office in 2001, giving fodder for candidates seeking the Democratic presidential nomination to challenge the Republican president in November. Bush vowed in his radio address to pursue "a pro-growth economic agenda, so that every person who wants to work can find a job." Democrats have also sharply criticized Bush's Iraq (news - web sites) policy and the U.S. failure to find banned weapons in Iraq. Recent polls have shown Bush's job approval rating falling below 50 percent and shown him trailing Democratic presidential candidate U.S. Sen. John Kerry (news - web sites) of Massachusetts, the front-runner for his party's nomination, in a head-to-head matchup. Bush defended his policies on Iraq and the economy in South Carolina on Thursday, two days after that state's presidential primary, which featured numerous attacks on Bush by the Democrats. Bush is to travel on Monday to Missouri, another of last week's primary states and a key battleground in the general election, to discuss the economy. He will meet with economic leaders at the White House on Tuesday. On Sunday, Bush is to appear in a rare hourlong interview on NBC's "Meet the Press." Republicans said the push reflects "high anxiety" in the Bush camp over Democratic attacks and the president's election year situation. In his radio address, Bush plugged his economic proposals which include new job-training initiatives, making tax cuts permanent, and reforming the legal and regulatory systems. "Taking these steps will add momentum to our nation's economic expansion and extend jobs and prosperity to more Americans," he said.

I usually get something imported. Helps promote free trade and globalization.

Buy Schaffer's!

Franklin --You're right; you made no claim about the effects on American democracy of CBS's refusal. I inferred it.In my opinion, the boycott is/was meaningless because it would not have impacted the ratings. If people found meaning in doing it, bully for them. But in this case it is/was an ineffective means of protest. Seems to me that that's a relevant point. Your view of commercial content is worthy of debate. Nonetheless, there is certainly a distinction between advertisements that are explicitly political and those which are selling products. And, you did refer to the Super Bowl as the "capitalist pig TV event" in, I believe, message 791. Anyway, I'll sign off now. I'm going to get in my SUV and go out and buy some beer.

OK, Craig:You said "Yes, the entire American political structure has been dealt a fatal blow by CBS's unwillingness to air a commercial. Give me a break."Where oh where did anyone from Blowback make sucha claim? Wow, what a counterargument this is to the complaint that CBS should not censor issue ads.You said "And the one minute boycott is meaningless, particularly in your case, since you weren't going to watch anyway." What does this have to do with anything? Who are you to decide what has meaning and what doesn't?You said "For the record, it is my understanding that no issue-advocacy commercials have ever been aired during the Super Bowl." Glad to see we all read the newspaper. But the point goes beyond this. One is the issue of the fact that the airwaves belong to the public. And much more important in my mind is the myth that commercial ads have no political content. Sure they do. Commercials promoting SUVs clearly promote the rampant consumption of fossil fuels. Commercials for beer generally promote sexual stereotypes. And that's jsut the tip of the iceberg.You said "BTW, you might actually try to learn something about the NFL, which actually functions in a somewhat socialistic manner -- all TV profits are shared equally among the teams, arguably the best labor relations in professional sports, among other things -- before making simple-minded charges of "capitalist pig."Where oh where did anyone even use the term "capitalist pig"? I didn't. Where is the "counter-argument" in this?So where are the "legitimate counter arguments"? All I see is a lot of hot air. And it reminds me of the last time you graced these pages with your presence - you spent most of your time griping about "arguments" you made that were not answered. If you think something is that good, re-phrase it. Or just let it go.Yeah, man, let go...

Franklin, you constantly deflect legitimate counter-arguments instead of addressing them. Why not engage and defend your position? Surely you have a case to make, no?Raising the latest on the CIA addresses part of my point -- here's somthing really important, deserving of attention. Why get bogged down over a commercial, especially if, as I pointed out, no issue-advocacy ads have ever run during the Super Bowl?As it turns out, no one would have remembered the commercial anyway, but that's another subject.

You're funny Craig. And you, laughy boy, are even funnier.Y'all should have a laugh-in.More funny stuff:The CIA Director just threw the Administration for a credibilty loop. Read the papers tomorrow, and you might learn something.

RIP Cornelius Bumpus

Yes, the entire American political structure has been dealt a fatal blow by CBS's unwillingness to air a commercial. Give me a break. For the record, it is my understanding that no issue-advocacy commercials have ever been aired during the Super Bowl.If I were a contributor to MoveOn.org, I'd question whether spending $2.3 million on one ad was really the best use of resources.I'm just as glad to have had a few hours uninterrupted by politics, whether by MoveOn and like-minded groups or by their counterparts on the right. And the one minute boycott is meaningless, particularly in your case, since you weren't going to watch anyway.BTW, you might actually try to learn something about the NFL, which actually functions in a somewhat socialistic manner -- all TV profits are shared equally among the teams, arguably the best labor relations in professional sports, among other things -- before making simple-minded charges of "capitalist pig."

Don’t forget to stop bathing (oh yeah, most of us don’t do that regularly anyway…) prior to the capitalist pig TV event. Make sure to bang on your drums and burn an amerikkkan flag while chanting anti-amerikkkan slogans *sponsored by I.N.T.E.R.N.A.L. A.N.S.W.E.R. a.k.a. the communist party. Oh yes. Al Gore was robbed in 2000.Don't forget the pachuli oil!!!